This invention relates generally to high security locks and more particularly concerns side bar locks.
Side bar locks are used in a wide variety of applications, including, for example, ignition, door, trunk and glove compartment locks on motor vehicles. Once the lock is installed, it is desirable to have the ability to cut a key having the appropriate combination to open the lock without having to remove the lock from its mounting. Such removal is time consuming and could cause damage to the locked article as well as to the lock.
Various types of decoders have been devised for determining the combination of side bar locks. They generally involve a tedious, time consuming, sequential manipulation of individual wafers in order to determine the combination code wafer by wafer. When manipulation of each wafer is completed, the conversion of the information gained by the manipulation into useful decoding data is generally complicated and inaccurate.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide a side bar lock decoder that is easy to use. Another object of this invention is to provide a side bar lock that can be manually manipulated to simultaneously determine the code values of all wafers in the lock.